IVF mix-up and the wrong dad

A 13-year-old boy who for years doubted his relationship to the man he called his father has learnt that a fertility clinic inseminated his mother with the wrong sperm.

The teenager, who cannot be named but is referred to as Daniel, fought for six years to make his father take a DNA test. After 80 hearings at the family division of the high court, a DNA test was ordered by the judge. It proved that father and son were not related and that a mistake had occurred at the clinic.

Fertility experts said the current risk of an IVF blunder was minimal, despite last year's case at the assisted conception unit at Leeds general infirmary, when a white couple gave birth to mixed-race twins after the wrong sperm was used.

But questions were raised about why Daniel's mother was told her records had been lost when she tried to trace them.

Daniel's mother underwent IVF treatment with her then husband in 1988, paying £5,000 to a clinic at the private Wellington hospital in St John's Wood, north London. The IVF franchise at the hospital was then run by Ian Craft, who now runs the London Fertility Centre in Harley Street.

A spokesman for the London Fertility Centre said Professor Craft was away and could not be contacted. Asked whether records had been destroyed, he said he could not comment on events that happened before 1990 when the London Fertility Centre was set up.

A spokesman for the Wellington hospital said the hospital had changed ownership twice and changed its name since the 1990s. There had been no IVF facility at the clinic for many years.

The question of Daniel's paternity was raised after his parents divorced when he was very young and his father went to the courts to fight for access. Daniel, who looked and behaved very differently from his father, was ordered to spend every other weekend with him, enforced by the courts. He often refused to go.

Daniel's mother told the Sun: "The older he grew - the less he looked or behaved like his so-called father... The damage done to that little boy is unfathomable. He has been robbed of his childhood."

She petitioned the courts to order a paternity test, but they refused. Daniel was eventually afforded his own solicitor and a judge ordered a test.

Daniel told the newspaper: "When I was five I started asking my mum why I was so different to my dad. My mum told me I had been born in a hospital and it was not impossible there had been a mix-up... I am relieved to know the truth at last, but I have no wish to know who my real father is."

Alison Murdoch, chairwoman of the British Fertility Society, said: "The fertility community must take responsibility for its mistakes and where errors occur we must learn from them."

But she said the mistake had taken place before the introduction of the regulatory authority, the human fertilisation and embryology authority, and the chances of errors were currently "extremely slight".

The HFEA said at every licensed clinic all procedures by an embryologist were witnessed and doublechecked by another member of staff to avoid mix-ups.

Angela McNab, its chief executive, said: "The HFEA continuously assesses even 'near-miss' incidents in order to improve safety across all licensed IVF clinics."

Patricia Hollings, a family lawyer with the firm Finers Stephens Innocent, said the family had endured a long, costly and traumatic struggle for a blood test and the paternity issue should have been resolved earlier

While courts could direct a father to have a paternity test, he could refuse on the grounds it was a breach of his human rights. "There will be more and more children born of IVF and more families breaking down," Ms Hollings said. "The law doesn't reflect the movement in society."

She said the family had not decided whether to take legal action against the clinic.